THE TEAM SO FAR... JOIN IN THE FUN!
Alex (18)
Amy (24)
Carolann (22)
Eleanor (16)
Anything to do with computer science
Superstar DJ
Event management/marketing
Lawyer
Dream job:
Role model:
Mark Zuckerberg
Favourite quote:
“Do it for the butterflies” Little Nicky
Pet hate:
Grammar Nazis
Party trick: Voices.
How I chill out:
Watch random stuff on youtube
Dream job:
Dream job:
Role model:
Role model:
Justin Bieber, obviously
Marilyn Monroe
Favourite quote:
“There’s nothing worse than being ordinary”
Pet hate:
False people
Favourite quote:
“‘Live, Laugh, Love’”
Pet hate:
Running late, I hate being late!!
Party trick:
Party trick:
Darts trick shot
I make rhymes & songs on nights out
How I chill out:
Alcohol, good music or both
How I chill out:
Bath, candles and my onesie!
Dream job:
Role model: Kate Middleton
Favourite quote:
“Live every day like it’s on purpose”
Pet hate:
Bad spelling
Party trick:
My fingers are double jointed
How I chill out:
Painting and drawing
Emma (23)
Hannah (15)
Kayleigh (21)
Lauren (25)
Own my own therapeutic wellbeing organisation
Nutritionist
Actress
Wellbeing Guru
Dream job:
Favourite quote:
“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference” Winston Churchill
Pet hate:
People eating with their mouths open.
Party trick: Mum dancing
How I chill out: Shopping
Dream job:
Dream job:
Role model:
Role model:
Favourite quote:
Favourite quote:
Zooey Deschanel
Lee Evans
“Colour my life with the chaos of trouble”
Dream job:
Role model: Stephen Fry
Favourite quote:
Pet hate:
“ Life is about falling, living is about getting back up”
People pinching your food
Party trick:
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth”. Oscar Wilde
Party trick:
I can touch my head with my feet
Fitting in ridiculously small spaces
How I chill out:
Pet hate:
Either listening to loud music or Watching films
Sexism
How I chill out:
How I chill out:
Listening to music, reading
Sewing and reading
We want you to react & interact with us!
React in MAY Welcome to May’s edition of React. This is the 5th issue of literary loveliness written and designed by under 25s in Blackburn with Darwen. This month we welcome Neil to the team, a valued new writer. We are always looking for new talent to join the team and would love for you to get involved. This month our fantabulous writers and designers have been hard at work exploring mood. What puts you in a good mood? At the start of the month Daft Punk were giving me my morning umph but that’s wearing off a little now. What gets you out of bed in the morning? Olivia speaks to people about their good mood bad mood mojos, whilst Neil focuses a little more on the bad mood Rovers have put him in. Kayleigh explore that buzzword bipolar- What is it all about and how does it affect things? Here at React we’d love to know your views on self-expression. Got any tattoos you regret? Would you and do you treat someone with more visible tattoos and piercings differently to a twin set and pearls? Let us know @_react_mag Don’t forget to check out our regular Hot or Not features, keeping you up to date with the latest music, fashion, film and tech reviews.
Don’t forget to download your copy of React at www.react-mag.co.uk Follow us @_React_mag Like us on Facebook ‘Reactmag’
Bipolar // txt tlk. r u ok? // mood-food// TOP dogs to relegation rats // do you know who your voting for? // spring cleaning // pride of Britain // The good, the bad & the things// Hot or Not: FASHION MUSIC, FILM TECH
Bipolar - it’s not all about the highs Bipolar seems to be something that recently people are becoming aware of, which has been helped by celebrities embracing their illnesses and declaring them to the world. The most famous celebrity who advocates for bipolar in this country is Stephen Fry, however the number of celebrities coming forward is slowly rising, with people such as Frank Bruno, Paul Gascoigne, Mel Gibson, Axl Rose and Demi Lovato all talking about being a part of the bipolar crowd. It is, in my honest opinion, great that celebrities are starting to come forward with not just physical illnesses, but experience of mental health distress. It helps ease the stigma, and shows us all that just because they are celebrities and we believe that by default their life must be better than ours, that actually they are human beings. When I think of the people I know who have experience of bipolar, I know how hard it was for them to come to terms with and to accept their diagnosis. Imagine going through that with hundreds of people scrutinising and criticising you... It takes a lot of guts to go through an expereince such as depression in the quiet of your own home with your family and friends around you, but to have strangers suddenly start interfering and commenting on a private matter must really be difficult to bear. Bipolar is not something that should be taken lightly. It is not as simple as being happy one minute and sad the next, it is far more complex than that. Stephen Fry once famously fled the
Mood/Food Bad mood? We’ve all been there, whether your adventurous new hair dye didn’t turn out too well, you’ve been banned from club penguin or you’re just having a bad day, sometimes the littlest things can upset us just as much as the biggest. A bad mood can really make you feel down about yourself, so for an instant confidence boost from one to beyoncé, try nature’s very own anti-depressant: food.
country, hiding in France to get away from the stresses of daily life which led to a nationwide search for him. At that time, it was not public knowledge of his bipolar, but since then he has publicly spoken about his experience of bipolar and has helped raise awareness of it, even doing documentaries about it to try and explain to people just how hard it is. I have been told it is like a rollercoaster, but with your emotions. The creep up to the high point is slow and steady, then when you get there you feel like you are on top of the world. However, to all of you out there who like going on rollercoasters know that the long drag to the top is shortlived by the sudden and quick drop to the very bottom. However, in the case of bipolar it isn’t a thrill to go down, it doesn’t give you an adrenaline rush. Kurt Cobain was a famous musician in the throes of bipolar, and sadly committed suicide whilst on one of his downers. So it isn’t as simple as your favourite football team losing so you become depressed, it can be utterly devastating. So it’s good to know that celebrities are accepting it, because then maybe it makes it more acceptable for any of us to have it, and to seek support. I for one am glad that there are people out there who are trying to remove the stigma of bipolar by showing us that there really is nothing to be ashamed of. Kayleigh
In today’s modern society with the likes of mobiles, Facebook, and Twitter the art of conversation between two people has dwindled to a quick txt or tweet. I often wonder whether Romeo and Juliette would have ended in the same tragic way had Facebook been around all those many moons ago, changing a relationship status to ‘complicated’ and with the help of ‘check in’ she wouldn’t have had to ask ‘Romeo, Romeo, where forth …. Oh wait he’s checked in at his dad’s I’ll call him later’. Not only are people not having a face to face conversation anymore, and no face time does not count! But words are being lost in translation and mixed messages being given. I think every one can relate to receiving a txt message with one too many exclamation marks and assuming that the sender is mad at you, you then begin to wonder what exactly you have done wrong and what you can do to fix it, not to mention how on earth you reply to such a message. In these five minutes of sheer panic and confusion comes a second message dismissing the negative thoughts as the extra punctuation was one of happiness and excitement. Having been in the situation on many occasions I have come to the conclusion that when reading a txt I have to assess my own current mood before decoding the context and its meaning. When you’re feeling down you could read the happiest message in the world and still manage to put a negative spin on it. I also find going to bed with my phone next to me is a deadly mix, I can be txting till the early
Now when I say food, I’m not suggesting you try to drown away your problems in excess quantities of chicken McNuggets or Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream, because we’ve all been there and I can vouch for the fact that eating away your feelings just leads to a great deal of secret midnight snacking and blaming the dog the next morning. No, what I’m suggesting is that you rethink your diet a bit more carefully.
mood swings, aiming for two to three servings of fish a week definitely has its health benefits, which include healthy skin, nails, and hair. If that sounds a little too fishy for your taste, try cod liver oil or Omega 3 supplements at breakfast. And while we’re on the topic, don’t replace your breakfast with a Special K biscuit and a bottle of water every day - a breakfast that isn’t balanced enough often leads to problems like anxiety and fatigue.
First of all, try throwing some fish on your plate. Though some contradictory data has been found about whether it aids depression and
When you’ve got your fishy head on, grab your carbohydrate cap too and stop banishing carbs from your daily meals: just pick the healthy
hours then find myself exhausted the following day and was it really worth losing three hours of sleep just to find out what the girls are wearing for the do I will be at the following weekend? I am now ever so slightly thankful to Apple, for creating ‘do not disturb’ as I am getting a more decent night’s sleep, albeit having to catch up on correspondence in the morning ha ha. In the past ten years mobiles have come so far, everything needed is at our fingertips and sometimes it’s easier to send a quick txt rather than call, if this is the case now what do the next ten years hold for our society and more importantly could the generation of today cope without all these modern technologies or would conversation cease altogether? By Carolann Creane Tweet us your thoughts #24hrswithoutaphone
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ones. Lots of carbohydrates like serotonin (and plenty of others with long tongue-twister names) are the little chin-up-chuck boosters that mother nature cleverly sneaks into foods like wholegrains, veggies and fruit. Also, a low-carb diet is not as healthy as it sounds for other reasons too: researchers in Arizona State University found it increases fatigue and reduces desire to exercise if you don’t eat enough. So without your daily weetabix and a banana, you won’t be feeling much like beyoncé after all. - Eleanor Kerfoot
Fashion
Music
FILM
Tech
I want it now...
Rather than predicting which artists are going to be huge – which we oh so successfully did in our January issue – this month we’re gonna shout about 3 tracks we can’t get enough of.
Having had the misfortune of enduring Tom Cruise’s latest sci-fi flick ‘Oblivion’ not once, not twice, but three times in one month, I feel I am knowledgable enough about futuristic-looking lycra suits and alien races to have a rest from this this newly-released Kosinski blockbuster for, well, quite a long time. Overall I came to the conclusion that this 125 minute yawn-session was, to put it frankly, mind-numbingly pointless.
We all know Google as being a search engine, some of us may know them for the phones, and some of us may know them for their laptops, but none of these things are really, revolutionary are they? You wouldn’t look at Google’s search engine and be blown back in amazement would you? Well, maybe their new piece of tech will.
Here goes...
Robin Thicke ft. Pharrell and TI Blurred Lines
Cat-eye sunglasses Ray-bans are cool, don’t get me wrong, but the only shapely shades to be seen in this summer are of the feline variety. Go all-out Dame Edna Everage if you want or keep it muted with
Animal print swimwear Yep, it’s that time of year again...time to bring out the beach bodies. The swimwear’s already hit the shops, so if you’re going away this summer, get the good stuff before it’s gone. Tiger faces are everywhere – emblazoned onto the front of onepieces if you’re brave enough – as are more subtle designs including mini elephant-print bikinis and kaftans. It’s just says fun and it’s perfect for summer.
This disco number is a collaboration between American R&B singer-songwriter Robin Thicke, T.I. and Pharrell Williams. The song, produced by Williams, is the lead single from his upcoming sixth studio album. It’s bouncy, it’s catchy and boy does it make you wanna dance.
Lion Babe – Treat Me Like Fire Lion Babe is the NYC-based duo of Jillian Hervey and Lucas Goodman. Treat Me Like Fire is the first of their tracks to make it across the pond, bringing that Motown sound of old bang up to date. Dare I say that Lion Babe could be the United States’ answer to AlunaGeorge? Check out the video too.....one word. Fierce!
Relatively new on the scene, Australian singer George Maple has a voice that could relax Alan Sugar. Mix that with the laidback vibes added on top from house-duo Maribou State and you’ve got the perfect track to chill-out to. Pop it on while you’re in the bath and thank me later.
Seem pretty cool huh? Well they aren’t some thought up plan for Google to think about making, they have actually been made and are going through testing. You were even able to sign up to test them not too long ago. Unfortunately that isn’t available yet, but by the looks of things, they will be available very soon.
Viral of the month If you haven’t already seen this, then you don’t get on Facebook enough. So clearly this viral hasn’t blown up just on YouTube, its blown up on Facebook as well, and don’t worry, it’s not one of those videos part of the new fad about getting the most disgusting video on Facebook. It is of course, ‘How Animals Eat Their Food’.
I can’t believe I’m saying this.....jelly sandals (yep, the ones you wore in Majorca in ’93) are back in town. Available from all the high-street trendsetters, you can get them in a rainbow of shades and they’re not too pricey either. So wrong, but I think I secretly want some. Shush.
By my third involuntary re-watching of this scifi spin-off, I had managed to devise an entertaining method of killing some time in an attempt to avoid the ever-increasing temptation growing inside me to just nod off to sleep. The trick is to think of all the better things you could be doing, instead of trying to ignore the person behind you whose popcorn crunching sounds a lot like a space shuttle taking off. Anything more enjoyable will do fine, for example pushing jelly beans into your ears, eating a cactus, or knitting a scarf to use as a blindfold against Tom Cruise’s radiantly orange spray tan.
As you can see in the image, it’s just a pair of glasses but with only one small lens over the right eye. Along with lens is a built in camera. At the moment, it does what most phones would do; take pictures, record videos, provide GPS, and so on. The cool thing about them though is that they are hands free, everything is operated by your voice and is displayed right in front of your eye. It is also similar to some very top end phones as well, as it lets you stream videos. It also has a special feature ’Answers without having to ask’, which from what I can tell, it will simply provide information based on your current situation, such as if you are at an airport and waiting for a flight, it will let you know when it’s able to be boarded and if it’s on time.
George Maple - Fixed (Maribou State Remix)
Not so much...
Jellies
Don’t get me wrong, the complicated plot and dramatic overreactions did have me interested for a little while - at least long enough to keep my ears pricked up for the opening lines, however there’s definitely a limit to the amount of time you can spend watching Morgan Freeman puff happily on his cigar.
It’s called ‘Google Glass’ and to put it simply, it’s a computer built into a pair of glasses.
So if you haven’t already watched it, it is a series of short comedy skits in which the actors humorously depict how different species of animals would feed at a dining table. Two friends under the YouTube channel name of ‘MisterEpicMann’ have been making videos as roommates since they arrived at college
(American college, so University for us British folk). All of their videos are help videos, in the sense that they teach you new ways of how to do things or inform you of different aspects of the world, they simply put a comical twist on things. Within the first two weeks, the video accrued nearly 47.5 million views on YouTube and 3.5 million shares on Facebook. Its quick founded popularity has also led to other people to create numerous different versions of the videos, some good, and some bad. Many other videos that ‘MisterEpicMann’ has uploaded are in fact quite comical; one of his other videos called ‘Seven Ways to Disci-
pline Your Child’ has also gained popularity and could also be classed as a viral video. I would highly recommend watching the video if you haven’t already watched it and
Top dogs to relegation rats
Do you know who you’re voting for?
Spring Cleaning my beauty products
From Top Dogs to Relegation Rats: The Rise and Decline of Blackburn Rovers
When it comes to voting time, do you bother to find out about what the options are? Do you sift through the endless amounts of information to find out where your vote would be placed? Or do you just wait and see who and what everyone else is voting for?
It’s that time of year again to dust off our cleaning products and give everything in our lives a spring clean. Now I should say honestly I am rubbish at cleaning and my humble boudoir often goes for the ‘bombs just hit’ look, I like to think of it as organised chaos but I know my mum would disagree.
I remember from a young age the euphoria that took over Blackburn when they got promoted from what is now the league they reside in the championship known then as division two, I remember when David Speedy took us up at Wembley from what the opposition fans took as a dubious penalty decision. Finally we’d hit the big time again and were amongst some of the biggest clubs in the world. “Cheat fell over” they sang. A real optimism took over fans that Blackburn born multi-millionaire owner Jack Walker, the first of his kind to bring big money to an English football club, could really do things at the club that hadn’t been done at Blackburn since the league began and Rovers were one of the founding clubs. Rovers made headlines in the summer of their promotion season by smashing the record fee for a player by paying £3.5 million for Alan Shearer from Southampton. Rovers ascension up the premier league was unprecedented, especially for such a small club and finished fourth in their first season, Shearer was starting to be acclaimed as one of the world’s best strikers and was tearing apart many premier league team defences. Murmurings of title success started to be voiced around the town and the next season Rovers came close and finished in second to Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United who had quickly eclipsed Burnley as Rover’s arch rivals. I remember clearly the season of 1995 when the appetite for the ultimate success the club was at its strongest ever. I remember the last game of Rovers was at Liverpool who shared in common with Rovers fans a rivalry with Manchester United who closely followed Rovers in the league. United were at West Ham and expected to win easily. It seemed the emphasis was on Rovers to win. Many of the Liverpool fans bore Rovers scarfs in clear defiance of their rivals. The Liverpool game was a scrappy affair and close to the end to the dismay of Rovers fans they were behind with Liverpool leading 2-1. All of a sudden word filtered through from London that the game at West ham had finished and Manchester United had also only managed a draw and thus couldn’t catch Rovers. The town went ballistic with what felt like the entire town out on the streets beeping horns of cars and hugging each other in the streets. This is in stark contrast to the modern day Blackburn Rovers who having been taken over by the Venkys are struggling to find any consistent or strong leadership from their owners almost relegated twice in the row in two seasons understandable Rovers fans feel disillusioned by the lack of awareness of the game the owners have shown. It is unlikely that Rovers will ever reach the heights they reached in 1995 as the precedent set by Walker of injecting big money into the game has been followed by many in much bigger clubs where sizable profits could be made. Walker was clearly unique in that he truly cared about his town of birth and could often be seen in the stadium in tears as fans sang his name. Neil Caton
I’m sure many people will actually look through the information but won’t learn everything about what they are voting for. So why is this? Is there not enough time to read it? Or is it just way too boring? I personally would opt for the second option right there. So what can we do to make it more interesting? Why don’t we take a look at American politics and how it works over there? They put huge amounts of effort into getting people interested in what they are campaigning for. They plaster the main points of their campaigns all over the place just to make sure people understand. They are very enthusiastic. Would it be better if our politicians were like that? Getting us interested in what they want and ensuring that we understand the main points?
One thing I do like to spring clean though is my make up bag, in fact I’m sure I clean it every month as it’s the perfect excuse to go shopping for new beauty products …. My favourite pass time. In keeping with the spring theme I have chosen a product new to the shelves for Spring 2013. Urban Decay has released a ‘Naked Beauty Balm’ this season and I am in love with this moisturiser! Here’s what Urban Decay had to say about this product, ‘It’s not just any beauty balm – it’s Naked Skin Beauty Balm – the BB cream with INSANE benefits. Unlike a lot of beauty balms, Naked Skin delivers measurable anti-aging benefits – and we’ve got the claims
to prove it. And while many beauty balms are tinted to provide coverage, ours diffuses light with high-tech pigments to give you amazing, natural, NAKED-looking skin that keeps getting better every week.’ I use this product every day as a primer before finishing with my foundation, but on many occasions have I applied the beauty balm and felt fresh faced with enough coverage to leave the house. The beauty balm also contains SPF20 so you know its doing good as well as making you feel good. The product retails at £23 and can be purchased from your nearest Urban Decay counter. A must have for every girls make up back this spring/ summer. Urban Decay can be found at Debenhams in Blackburn. By Carolann Creane
Well if you compare it to what our politicians are like. First off you need a degree in politics to even understand half of what they’re saying the majority of the time, and talking about getting people to hear about politics like in America may be occurring in Britain, but you’d never hear anything about it, seeing as all we ever hear about is what is going wrong with those we vote into top jobs. Just look at Paris Brown, the youth crime commissioner who tweeted offensive tweets. She was forced to quit because of them. Is that fair? Should she be fired due to her opinions, or due to how good a job she is doing? If anything you could argue that having someone so young doing such a job is an attempt at trying to get people more interested in voting, and she’s been taken away from it. This could also bring in everything to do with people of high status jobs doing things that you wouldn’t expect, such as Andrew Mitchell insulting police officers. Is it right that he had to quit because he insulted the police? Should everyone who has ever said anything bad about the police be fired? It’s almost as if the public don’t see them as people and instead see them as someone who just does the job they have been assigned to, and if they do anything other than that, they shouldn’t be allowed the job. So should we carry on like this? Or should we expect to get to know more about the person as well as what they are campaigning for? Instead of trying to change how the public react, should we just copy America and show that the politicans are people too? What do you think? Let us know @_React_Mag or on Facebook at Reactmag
Pride of britain As we all know, last summer Britain played host to the Olympic Games. Gaining a total of 65 medals it’s no surprise everyone was feeling a little patriotic but with the Eurovision Song Contest looming, will our British pride rear its head again? Ok so I’m not saying the Olympics are on par with Eurovision but it’s still showcasing our country’s talent, right? We might have only won 5 times but it’s the taking part that counts! (shout out to Engelbert Humperdinck, good effort last year). Frankly, I think we’re taking the wrong approach to this whole song contest thing. Every year we perform the same kind of sad love ballad and it’s about time we put a stop to it. It seems that countries with the bizarre routines often place the highest- you know the kind, people dress like aliens and run around etc. If the queen could skydive into the Olympic stadium then why can’t something similar happen at Eurovision? I’d love to see Prince Harry perform some kind of dance. In fact I think his mere presence would score at least an extra 10 points for the U.K. Hannah
Debbie Bloy Good mood: good weather, sitting in the sun with a glass of wine Bad mood: lazy people at work
Alice Brett Good mood: being with my friends Bad mood: having lots of homework to do
Mary Bloy Good mood: family, especially my grandchildren and walking in the sunshine Bad mood: aggressive drivers
Ioan Thomas Good mood: bears, they are beautiful talented animals. Bad mood: people breathing loud
Jack Turner Good mood: man city, just love them Bad mood: when man city lose
THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE THINGS that make us feel that way
Geraint Joseph Good mood: honey badgers because they are slam, feisty and cute Bad mood: turtles on their backs
John Taylor Good mood: alcohol though too much puts me in a bad mood the next day. Bad mood: bad food
Helen Turner Good mood: free time Bad mood: Monday mornings
Anna Woods Good mood: walking my dog! Bad mood: bad weather
Stuart Geddis Good mood: getting into a really good book Bad mood: soaps on TV, the ridiculous story lines just confuse real life.
George Brown Good mood: artic monkeys Bad mood: one direction
WHAT About you? Whats puts you in a good/bad mood?
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Ok so exams are almost over, hallelujah. Does that mean everyone can continue with their lives and stop talking about them now?! If one more person describes exams as a ‘marathon’ I will scream. Personally, I don’t need 20 different speeches on why your grades are so important- we know already, it’s been drilled into us since the age of 5 and after spending most of our lives in education I find it highly unlikely that I’m ever going to forget that. As if the actual exam itself wasn’t bad enough, people running around in a mad panic on the day hardly aid the situation. Please don’t say ‘I’m going to fail’, before going into the exam when you’ve already got 10 a*s in the bag as we all know there’s 0 chance of that happening. Can everyone just calm down a bit? If you’re genuinely that panicked about your exams, just have a cup of tea, a bath (maybe revise a bit more) and an early night rather than staying up tweeting about your impending failuregood luck!
Is it just me? Am I ranting on my lonesome? Let me know, tweet @_React_Mag
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